


Longest Way Round

by MagritteApples



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Origin Story, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-04-30 20:04:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5177927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagritteApples/pseuds/MagritteApples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home." -James Joyce, Ulysses</p>
<p>Nolan-verse retelling of Jonathan Crane's beginnings, from Georgia to the Narrows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Granny

**Author's Note:**

> This is meant to be a Nolan-verse story, but the early events and characters are based (loosely!) on Scarecrow: Year One and Masters of Fear. Enjoy!

She was pretty, the woman in the photograph.

Jonathan found her buried in a cardboard box in the atrium, one of a thousand faces in dusty, dog-eared scrapbooks, leather-bound and stitched in gold. There had always been boxes in the atrium. For as long as he could remember, there were mountains of them, stuffed full of beautiful, moth-eaten things. Long dresses and men’s stiff hats, dolls and toy railway cars covered in bright, chipped paint. He asked once why they didn’t ever _use_ any of the things in the boxes, why they were all so much nicer than the things that they kept out around the house. That earned him a slap. He knew better than to ask about it now, but he looked inside them sometimes, and Granny didn’t always stop him. She just watched him, and sometimes a box would vanish from the atrium. Some were banished to storage in the attic, but most were just gone. He never figured out what she did with them, but he knew better than to ask about that too, and there were always plenty left.

This box was full of photographs. He’d discovered it two days ago, and it hadn’t vanished yet. It was one of his better finds, and this picture was easily one of the best. He liked it because it was bright. It wasn’t faded or yellowed like the others, wasn’t taken in hard-edged black and white. The woman wore blue jeans with holes in the knees, a floppy sun hat with a ribbon come halfway undone. She looked happy. She was smiling, and—he decided, after some thought—would not have seemed nearly so nice had she been stern. She was thin and pale like Granny was, with a sharp face, bright eyes and dark hair. Jonathan would have known she was family, even without the looping cursive script that marked the backside. _Karen – age sixteen_. Still, for all the resemblance, it was a warm photograph, all patchy sunshine and thick, summertime grass.

“She’s a whore, you know.”

Jonathan jumped, dropping the picture back into his lap. Granny gazed at him evenly. He watched her take a long, thoughtful sip of her tea, eyeing the book in his hands like it was a bug that had just crawled up through the bathroom drain.

“I don’t know what that means, Granny.” He’d heard the word before, at least once or twice. He knew enough to know that it was a Bad Thing, worse than Hooligan, but not nearly so bad as Filthy. The woman in the photograph, though, didn’t look to him like any of those things.

“Nevermind that.” Granny’s dress swished past him—he hadn’t even heard her stand up—and two hands plucked the scrapbook from his lap before he could protest. “It means she does the Devil’s work. That’s all you need to know.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said softly, keeping his doubts to himself. The book vanished back into its box, and Jonathan didn’t need to be told that he was no longer allowed to open it up.

Granny went on standing there for another half a minute, perhaps waiting to see if he would try it. She seemed ready to send him out of the room then, up to the attic with the box or out into the yard. He hoped she would. He didn’t think he was in trouble, but he didn’t like the way she kept looking at him. It seemed it could only be a matter of time before she changed her mind and hauled him up to spank him.

Jonathan was too late to pull away when she reached down and took him by the chin, turning his face from side to side. She looked grim, and she tisked at him under her breath the way she might tisk at a dead bird lying in the yard. “My, though,” she said, peering into his wide eyes, “You do look like her, don’t you?”

“Granny-” he began, but by then she’d let him go.

“Supper in one hour, boy. You’d better be washed up by then.” She swished back to the long table and sat down firmly. “And put that,” her gaze flicked to the box again, “Back where it belongs.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, but he looked down at it dubiously, rubbing at the place where her fingers had dug into his chin. It looked heavy. Slowly, he wrapped both hands around the box’s handle and dragged it towards the staircase. Granny seemed satisfied, and he didn’t dare complain, but he was sorry to be taking the pictures away. He hadn’t seen nearly all of them. The albums rattled around as he pulled the box up the stairs, step by step. He wished he knew what it meant, that word she’d used—he shied away from saying it, even in his head—Granny wasn’t always right about people, but she knew his mother, and he never did. He used to think he’d meet her one day, at the store, maybe, or on the way to school. She only lived two counties over. It had never happened, though, and he figured he was probably getting old enough to know better.

He never wondered if he’d meet his father. He was in the box too, just once, sitting with Karen on the hood of a big brown car. It was winter then, and they both had thick sheepskin coats on over their sweaters, arms around each other’s shoulders. It was the only picture of him that Jonathan could find, and he didn’t think that even Granny knew it was there. From the last window in the hall he could see the long stretch of gravel where they must have parked, swallowed up now in a carpet of old leaves. He didn’t think that Karen could have liked his father very much. There were so many photographs of her, but only one of him, and even that was just an old Polaroid, wasn’t even framed. He’d only gotten up the courage to ask Granny about him once. He thought she would get angry. He’d been so frightened, just waiting for her to get angry, but she didn’t. She only laughed. He could still remember the sound of it in vivid, baffling detail. She’d thrown her head back, laughed a shrill, high laugh, and told him she couldn’t even remember the man’s name.

Jonathan stopped on the third floor landing, arms aching, and thumped down beside the box on the top step. He rested his elbows on his knees, listening to the clanging of pots and silverware in the kitchen far below him. He knew the name. He learned it yesterday. It had been written in drippy black ink on the back of the picture, the one with the car, in cramped, printed letters that looked nothing like Granny’s. Karen Keeny and Gerald Crane. He gazed glumly out the window, traced the sprawling chapel roof with his eyes until it met the wide, empty blue of the sky. Crane. Like the bird.

“Jonathan!” He shot to his feet at the voice. “I don’t hear you moving up there!”

He could hear her footsteps moving towards the stairwell, and he scrambled to look busy, taking up the long pole they kept to reach the hinge on the attic door. It was nearly twice his height and heavy, but he knew how to balance it, and it didn’t slip through his fingers the way he worried it might.

“Dawdling, are we?” Granny said, coming into view at the bottom of the stairs.

Jonathan shook his head, “I wasn’t-”

“I thought you might.” Her face looked small and pale from that height, the size of his thumbnail. “Having one last peek at all your mother’s dirty laundry?”

“No, I-” Jonathan couldn’t help his eyes from flicking over to the box when she asked, but he _wasn’t_ peeking, and there wasn’t anything dirty about the pictures. “I was looking for the pole, Granny, honest.”

“The pole didn’t grow legs and wander off, my boy.” That was true. It had been right there in the corner. Jonathan gripped it a little tighter in his hands. “Now, up.”

He hurried to open the attic hatch. It took him several tries to hook the end of the pole into the thin loop of the drawstring, and all the while he could feel Granny’s eyes boring into his shoulders. The fold-out stairs came down with a rickety squeak, and only then did she stop staring at him.

“There you are,” she told him mildly, “Come to the kitchen when you’re done. I think we’ll have a little look-see in your pockets.”

Jonathan didn’t have anything in his pockets, certainly not photographs, but all he said was, “Yes, ma’am.”

To his relief, she answered, “Good boy.”

The stairs rattled ominously as he lifted the box onto the first step. They were old and splintery, and every time Jonathan used them he worried they might be getting ready to break. Sometimes he hoped they would, because he didn’t like going into the attic, and Granny hardly ever bothered with repairs that were too big for the two of them to handle on their own, but he didn’t want them to break while he was on them, and he didn’t want Granny to get mad. It was slow going, but he made it up six steps—most of the way—before he heard her feet padding back down the hallway, leaving him alone with the attic gaping darkly over his head.

He pushed the box up onto the ledge and gave it a shove. It rattled across the floor and halted noiselessly in front of a pile of other boxes, wet with mildew and splitting at the seams. The attic was a strange place, full of wilder things than the kind that lived in the atrium. The ceiling leaked, and even without a flashlight, he could see patches of water here and there on the wood floor. They looked black and murky in the dim light. He felt a little guilty, leaving the photographs in such an eerie place where he knew they’d only get wet and chewed up by rats, but he didn’t know what else to do. Granny would know if he took any. He’d have to hide them somewhere and lie about it, and he knew that was a sin.

He rarely climbed all the way into the attic if he could avoid it. There weren’t any lamps up there, and it felt safer to keep both feet on the stairs when he could, but this time it seemed like it might be worth the risk. Gingerly, and with a quick glance back at the landing, he pulled himself up over the ledge. The floor was bare and ragged, and he could feel grit scratching up his knees and the palms of his hands. He would be quick, he promised himself, tugging the lid from the box. He wouldn’t look at anything he hadn’t already seen, and he wouldn’t take anything. He just wanted to see the picture again.

It didn’t take him long to find it. Granny hadn’t bothered to put it back in its sleeve, and when he opened the cover of the topmost album it slipped out into his hand. He could hardly make any of it out in the dark. The hill where his mother had stood was now a black, scraggly mound, and her face was vague, a thumbprint on the page. He knew he didn’t have long to look—not long enough to bring it back down into the hall where it was light—but he did his best to remember what he saw. The shape of her ribbon. The angle of her head. Then he put the book away and closed the box.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Speaking of surnames: Most interpretations I've seen have Jonathan take the name Crane pretty much from birth, whether Gerald is ever actually in his life or not. You can assume that isn't the case here, and that his birth certificate says Jonathan Keeny. I have plans for the name change later on.


	2. Bo

Arlen Elementary sat a ways out of town on the near side of the Barrow River, a sludgy run of water that, though it had _river_ right there in the name, really was more of a swamp. The banks were lined with trees, a mile of them at least, and sturdier ground pocked with mole holes and stray footpaths. It was a dreary place, and that was all well and good for storytelling. In the winter, when the leaves thinned out and the view from the schoolyard stretched all the way to the bank, a shack could be seen on the edge of the water. That, by schoolyard consensus, was where the bog man lived.

Jonathan was the last to be told anything that passed through the playground gossip chain, but he did know some things. He _listened_ when other people spoke, whether they wanted him to or not. He knew which one of the sixth graders pulled the fire alarm on the third day of classes. He knew their homeroom teacher, Mrs. Peterson, took private calls in the office every morning, and locked herself in when she took them. He knew Bo Griggs’ father lost his job at the auto repair last summer, and hadn’t found a new one in the six months since. Jonathan didn’t think there could be anything wrong with listening. It kept him out of trouble once in a while—when Bo dumped a box of rotten eggs in his backpack, he heard him bragging about it in the hallway, and knew to take them out before they broke—but he often heard things he wished he hadn’t, things that spooked him. He knew all the rumors about his Granny ( _Old Mary, she’s losing her mind_ ), their family and their farm ( _Lord knows that place has more ghosts than it does rooms_ ), but at least he knew which of those were true and which weren’t. More confusing were the rumors that had nothing to do with him, rumors about the river and the woods, about strange things lurking on the outskirts of town.

One day in November, Jackie Grey drew a crowd swearing up and down that he and his cousins had seen a shadow creeping around the Barrow bridge the night before. He got most of the fourth grade boys, and a handful of the girls, to come and listen to the story, all gathered together in a clump by the first line of trees. The bog man was six feet tall, Jackie said, and _mean_. He had inch-long fingernails and teeth filed down to points. He ate hogs most of the time, deep in the woods, but what he really wanted to eat were _people_. Jackie stressed this last word gleefully. The shack in the woods was his house until it burned down, years and years ago, and you could always recognize the bog man by the rags he wrapped around his face to hide that he was, as Jackie put it, all burned up.

Jonathan came to listen in halfway through, uninvited, but quiet enough to be overlooked on the fringes of the group. Most of them had heard variations of the story before, from older siblings and cousins looking to get in a good scare, but Jackie was the first in their class to claim to have actually _seen_ it, and the audience he’d drawn was enough to pique Jonathan’s curiosity, even from across the schoolyard. He edged closer, and listened uneasily as Jackie described the shape he’d seen lurking under the bridge.

“I bet it was a dog,” Bo said, standing at Jackie’s side with his arms crossed, unimpressed. He wasn’t even looking into the woods. He had his back to it. “I bet you ran all the way home ‘cause of a dog.”

Jackie gave him a shove. “It wasn’t a dog, stupid. Dogs ain’t that big.”

Bo woofed at him and then broke down giggling, getting a general laugh, though there were more than a few eyes looking anxiously into the trees. Jonathan didn’t laugh at all. He didn’t like Jackie, but he didn’t think Bo was very funny either, and he was busy trying to spot the shack, just barely visible now as a smudge of gray wood by the bank.

Jonathan only lived a mile or two from the school, close enough to walk when the weather was good, and he cut through a corner of those woods nearly every day to get home. He took a footpath, a well-traveled one that never came within throwing distance of the river, but it unnerved him to think that he might be walking home one day, a little later than usual maybe, and turn around to find a shape slinking back and forth through the trees, ratty fabric where its face should be, smelling like ashes and dripping with mud.

“You never know,” Jackie was saying, when Jonathan phased back into the conversation. “He could be watching us right now.” Jonathan had inched a good deal closer to the trees, moss and litterfall crackling under his shoes, but Jackie’s voice was right behind him. Jonathan stiffened, body tensing up in anticipation before his mind had quite figured out what was going to happen next. He was still wondering how Jackie had gotten so close when he felt hands latch onto his shoulders, a voice in his ear shouting, “He could be _here_.”

Jonathan yelped and pulled away. Behind him a chorus of laughter broke out, and he turned to see that the group had thinned. Most of Jackie’s audience had wandered away, back to the playground and the blacktop, leaving only Jackie and Bo, George Dunstan, Brad Simmons.

"Careful, Keeny,” Jackie said, “Don’t get too close, or something might getcha.”

“Look at him.” George was still giggling, and Jonathan flushed a deep red. “You scared him so bad.”

“Did I scare you, spooky?”

“No,” Jonathan lied. It wasn’t fair, sneaking up on him like that—Jackie would’ve jumped too if he’d done it to him—but he didn’t like that they were alone at the tree line now, just the five of them. Their teachers were far away. Nobody was watching.

Jackie took a quick step forward, and smiled when Jonathan flinched back. “You’re such a liar.”

“Hey,” Bo said, cutting in,” Knock it off. I got a better idea.”

The other boys looked at Bo in surprise. Jonathan was nearly grateful for the interruption, but Bo’s wide, easy smile made him nervous. It was the way he smiled when a teacher caught him slipping into class after the bell, the way he coaxed other kids into watching the door and keeping quiet while he and Jackie went through Mrs. Peterson’s desk and wrote dirty jokes on the board.

"I bet Keeny can tell us who’s right.”

“Me?” Jonathan asked, glancing between the four of them.

Jackie caught on first. “Oh, yeah. I bet he can.”

“Yeah, Keeny,” Bo urged him, “Who’s right, me or Jackie? Bog man or no bog man?”

Jonathan’s heart sank. He could see the trap now, and he didn’t want to side with either of them. They’d make him regret it, whatever he said. Bo was bigger and harder to avoid—he lived just down the road from him, and walked home the same way—but Jackie was mean, and he didn’t take it well when arguments didn’t go his way. The last time Jonathan made him mad, he twisted his arm behind his back until he screamed. “I- I don’t know.”

“Aw, sure you do,” Jackie said, “You just said you weren’t scared.”

“Don’t you believe in ghosts, spooky?” George chimed in, “Your house is full of ‘em.”

“Shut up.” That was Bo, to Jonathan’s shock. The others looked startled, but they all shut their mouths. “I want to know what Keeny thinks.”

Bo really was big. At ten, he was only eight or nine months older than Jonathan, but he had half a head on him, and they both felt the difference when he stepped forward, hemming Jonathan in between the trees.

“We just want to settle a bet, me and Jackie. That’s all.”

Jonathan pressed his mouth shut and shook his head. Recess had to end eventually. He could wait them out. Behind them, the other boys were holding back laughter, but Bo looked like he was getting ready to lose his patience, that friendly smile dropping off his face.

“Come on, you ain’t deaf-“

The school bell rang. Jonathan wilted with relief, and took the opportunity to dart past Bo, nearly tripping over himself in the process. They didn’t chase him, just stood by the tree line cackling and watching him go.

*

They left him alone for the rest of the afternoon. It was a gray day, and partway through their last period, the sky finally broke open and let out the rain. The end of the day saw most of the kids making a run for their buses, or hurrying off down the road in slickers and boots. Jonathan stood in the doorway and stuck out his hand, watching as the hem of his sleeve soaked up the rain and drooped, waterlogged, from his wrist. He didn’t have a raincoat.

Dreading the walk, he drew back his hand and slipped into the stairwell, aiming for the second floor. Mrs. Leigh sometimes kept the school library open late, until the last buses left at four thirty, and he knew she’d let him stay in there so long as he was quiet. His spirits sank further when he came into the corridor and found the library doors locked up for the night. The rain was only getting harder, hammering on the windows and turning the sky the color of slate. He didn’t really know where to go after that. He wandered the halls aimlessly, waiting for the storm to clear or for someone to kick him out. He could still hear the sound of voices echoing through the foyer downstairs, but up on the second floor the school felt empty and very still, as if the voices were coming to him through a distant radio set and he was really all alone in the building. When even those sounds began to peter out, he settled down by a window across from the library doors and watched the rain form streaky patterns on the glass.

The longer he stalled, the less he wanted to go out into the woods. He could see the march of trees from the window, branches swaying and bowing in the wind. They looked dangerous when they moved like that, as if they might be hiding anything between them, tall figures with grasping hands buried deep in all those thrashing, writhing leaves. He blew on the glass and watched as the fog from his breath swallowed up the view, but that only made him feel worse, and he wiped it clean again with his sleeve. He knew he could take the long way home, an extra mile or so by the main road, but that would only make him later, and wetter, and he didn’t think Granny would be happy with him on either score.

The thought that she would be angry—and the realization, close on its heels, that it would eventually get dark—were enough to push him back down to the first floor, and out to the front doors. He stood there for a little while, taking in the signs of life outside the building. He could see the last round of buses loitering in the parking lot and, down the road, a pack of runners from the middle school cross country team. He began to feel a little better after that. He wasn’t all alone after all, and it wasn’t as late as he’d thought.

At the first break in the rain, he made a run for the road, sprinting until he came to the mouth of a trail that dipped off into the woods. The mud there was thick, and he had to pick his way carefully to avoid soaking his shoes, but the rain showed no sign of picking up again, and the light drizzle that was left wasn’t strong enough to make it through the trees. He could even make out patches of sunshine blooming further on down the trail. It would be alright, he told himself, slowing his pace. It was a fifteen minute walk at the very worst, and he would make it home well before dark. Granny, he hoped, would excuse his lateness when he told her he did it to spare his clothes from the storm. Granny hated washing mud out of his things, and he’d pay for it if he was too careless.

He was nearly halfway home before he heard it, a soft rustling in the leaves just off the path. Jonathan froze, and all the wild ideas that had dogged him through the afternoon came back to meet him in a rush. He held still, straining his ears and praying he’d see a squirrel or a rabbit hop out of the bushes and onto the trail. Nothing came. The rustling stopped, and then it was quiet. He waited nearly thirty seconds, counting them softly— _one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three_ —and then, reluctantly, he started walking again. He did his best to walk with his shoulders straight and not to hunch up, not to look like he was scared, just in case anybody was watching. He read once that predators learned to smell fear because it let them pick their prey, and he believed it, but he knew no matter what he did he’d still look like an easy catch. It was a cold day, even for the season, and Jonathan was wearing his warmest sweater, a hand-me-down from the attic nearly twice his proper size. The sleeves covered up his hands, and the hem hung down more than halfway to his knees. He’d been the smallest in his class for two years now, and the sweater dwarfed him, made him look even smaller than he already was.

It happened again, the rustling, and this time he tried to ignore it, though his skin had gone clammy, and he could hear his heart pounding loudly in his ears. He tried to tell himself it was an animal, but it didn’t sound like one to him. It sounded big. It sounded like a person, or something worse. He knew he wasn’t supposed to believe in monsters. Granny made that clear the first and only time he ever asked if she believed the Keeny farm had its own share of ghosts. God didn’t make unnatural things, she’d told him sternly, and souls only ever went to heaven or hell. If he saw anything like that, it was the Devil feeding him lies, and he should turn and walk the other way. Even if she was right, though, it didn’t make him feel any better. He didn’t want to meet the Devil in the woods. He didn’t want to meet the Devil wearing rags over his face, with a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth and long, raggedy nails.

Jonathan didn’t turn to look for the rustling anymore. He just walked, faster and faster, until he was nearly jogging, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground to dodge the puddles. He knew he had to be most of the way home. He knew that, any minute, he’d look up to see the trees give way to the road, see the brown, weedy ground of their fields stretching away behind it. He started counting again, knowing he’d be out of the woods before he got to five hundred. He made it to twenty, and then he heard something terrible. Off to his left, deep in the haze of branches and brush, something was growling at him.

He didn’t look to see what it was. He _ran_ , not caring anymore where he stepped or how muddy he got. He could hear rapid footsteps tearing through the leaves on the ground, faster than his, and something yipping and snapping at the air. He ran as hard as he could, slipping, nearly falling on his face. The thing was gaining on him. His lungs were burning, and just when he thought he couldn’t stand it any longer he crashed headlong into someone standing in the center of the trail. They collided hard, and he fell back with a cry, landing in a heap on the wet ground, squeezing his eyes shut as he waited for a blow, waited for ice cold hands to grab him and wrap around his throat.

“Jeez, Keeny. What’s the _matter_ with you?”

Jonathan looked up in disbelief. There were two faces staring down at him, familiar ones. He could recognize them, even through the sudden rush of hot, blurry tears. Bo looked a little annoyed to have been nearly run off the trail, but Jackie was howling with laughter, doubled over with it, saying, “Good boy, Bandit. Good dog.”

It sounded like gibberish to Jonathan until he heard another yip from behind him, and a large german shepherd trotted over to stand between the three of them, snuffling aggressively at his face. He tried to shove it away, but it didn’t move, and it growled low in its throat when he pushed it too hard.

“Get up, already,” Bo said, “He won’t hurt you.”

Jonathan didn’t believe that at all, but he did his best to collect himself anyway, flinching when the dog barked in his ear. The reality of the situation sunk in slowly. It was Bo’s dog. He’d seen it before. The Griggs had at least four of them, all big and poorly trained, left to roam in a pack around their property, and sometimes wander next door onto his. There hadn’t been anybody following him through the woods. There hadn’t been any monsters. It was all just Bo’s awful, mangy dog. “He- he chased me,” he tried to explain, scrubbing furiously at his face, trying to hide it with his sleeves. He was _crying._ They would tell _everyone._

“He was just playing,” Bo said, ruffling the dog on its head, “Right, Bandit?”

Jonathan looked between the two of them—Bo and his dog, Jackie still grinning like he’d just heard the greatest joke in the whole world—humiliation sticking like hot tar at the back of his throat. He shook his head fiercely, “He wasn’t.”

“He probably thought you were a chew toy, dressed like that,” Bo said, plucking at the corner of one hole in Jonathan’s ratty, oversized sweater. “Probably trying to play fetch.”

“He _wasn’t_ playing,” Jonathan said, nearly pleading, just to get them to admit it. “You know he wasn’t. You made him chase me.”

“We didn’t make him do anything.”

“Yeah, Keeny,” Jackie snickered, “It’s not our fault the _dog_ doesn’t like you.”

That got a laugh out of Bo, a kind of helpless, involuntary laugh that seemed to bubble up out of his throat, and all Jonathan wanted to do then was hit him. He wanted to punch him, split his lip, break his nose, but even now Bo towered over him and he couldn’t bring himself to move. All he could do was stand there, eyes puffy and face red, listening to them laugh. He was smaller than both of them, and he was outnumbered, and even if none of that were true, he was _scared_ , and they all knew it. Bo could break his jaw if he wanted to. He could break his arm. He could send his dog to chase him, howling and snarling, all the way to his doorstep, and out there in the woods there was no one to tell him to stop. Jonathan gazed at them balefully, working up the nerve to push past them and go home, when Bo said something unexpected.

“Alright, I’m sorry.” He was still laughing, but he sounded as if he was doing all he could to hold it back. “Really, I swear, I didn’t make him chase you. He’s just a dumb dog.”           

“I think he’s a real smart dog,” Jackie said darkly, giving Bandit a rough pat, but he didn’t interrupt Bo, and amazingly Bo wasn’t finished.

Wiping the last of the grin from his face, Bo held out a hand, palm up, as if he expected them to shake, and said, “Truce for today?”

Jonathan stared at Bo’s hand like it had teeth, like it was a rat trap he’d set up to spring in the attic. He shoved his own hands deep in his pockets. “Okay,” he said, “Truce.”

“Come on, stupid,” Bo insisted, thrusting his hand in his face, “I’m apologizing.”

“I said _okay_.”

“Then shake.” Bo straddled the path in front of him like a gatekeeper, blocking his way. They’d been forced to shake hands before, on the rare occasion that a teacher caught Bo harassing him in the hall, but Bo had never come to apologize on his own. He’d never acted like he was _sorry_ for scaring him half to death. Jonathan drew his hand out slowly, waiting for Bo to shove him, or jerk his hand out of reach and burst out laughing. He didn’t. They just shook. “Good. ‘Cause we were looking for you anyway.”

Jonathan jerked his hand back like he’d burned him. “I need to go home.”

“It ain’t even late yet,” Bo said, unfazed, “It’ll just be quick. We need your help with something.”

“We need a witness,” Jackie chimed in. He’d found a long stick and was waving it over Bandit’s head, trying to catch the dog’s attention. “Even you can do that, right, Keeny?”

“A witness?” Jonathan didn’t know how to respond to that. He knew what a witness was supposed to be—witnesses were called into court if they’d seen a crime, or watched somebody sign a will—but he didn’t see what that had to do with any of them.

“We’re going to see the bog man,” Jackie told him brightly. “If we see him, you can tell everybody we’re not lying.”

Jonathan’s stomach dropped all over again and he shook his head, “I- I don’t want to. I have to go.” He stepped around Bo and started up the path, but Jackie stopped him, raising his stick to block his way and bopping him once in the chest.

“Did we say you could leave?” Jackie asked him. Bandit echoed the sentiment with a hefty bark, though it was just as likely he was barking at the stick.

“I’m supposed to be home already,” Jonathan said, “I’m late, and I’ll be in a lot of trouble.” The stick left a green smear of moss on the front of his sweater, already soaked from his fall in the mud. He was _already_ in trouble, he realized, with some trepidation, whether he got home on time or not. “Please?”

“Sorry,” Jackie said with a shrug, as if the whole thing was out of his hands.

“Don’t be a wuss,” Bo added, coming up behind him, “It’s just an old shack. You don’t even have to go in.”

“Why do you need me to go at all?” Jonathan asked, rubbing absently at a splotch of mud on his sleeve. They’d never done anything like this before. They’d never invited him to come along with them like they _wanted_ him there, like they were all friends.

“Do you see anybody else here?” Jackie said, sweeping the air with his free hand. “Come on, it’ll be just like Scooby-Doo.” He must have seen how little that reference meant to Jonathan, because he just rolled his eyes and gave him another poke with the stick. “Come _on_. You just have to be there so everyone knows we’re telling the truth.”

“Everybody’ll want to hear the story tomorrow,” Bo urged him, “You can tell it if you want to. If you go inside, I bet even the sixth graders’ll be impressed.”

“You just said I didn’t have to go in,” Jonathan said, but he was weakening. He could see the road in the distance, through the last gap in the trees, and the crooked angles of his house far behind it. It looked less inviting now that he was done being chased through the woods, now that he knew a spanking and cold supper were probably the best he could hope to get when he got home.

Bo shrugged and said, “Make up your mind when we get there.”

Over Bo’s shoulder, Jonathan could just make out a small shape standing in the open doorway of his house, peering out into the fields. He didn’t want to be there, he realized. Granny was looking for him, and he didn’t want to be found yet. He took a deep breath instead, steeling himself, and said, “Okay, but-”

Bo grinned and slung an arm around his shoulder, pulling him off the path before he could finish the thought. “Good choice, Keeny.”

Jackie whooped and crashed after them, Bandit trailing along behind in a cloud of leaves and hanging moss. Jonathan’s heart was hammering in his chest, and he felt a little dizzy at the thought of his own disobedience. He’d regret it later, he knew, but that didn’t seem so bad for the moment. The woods weren’t nearly as menacing when he had company, and Bo was almost being nice, in a way. When they’d gotten ten or fifteen feet from the trail, Bo stopped pulling him along and let him go, and then they were just walking, the three of them side-by-side. It occurred to Jonathan, abruptly and with a faint thread of envy, that this was what it would feel like to be somebody else.

Jonathan knew the word _probability_. He remembered one day at the end of last year when a substitute teacher stood at the front of their classroom with a quarter and two dice, writing fractions on the board. The lesson had missed its mark with most of the third grade, who were still grappling with their times tables, but Jonathan had rather liked the idea, and given it some thought. There were hundreds of other kids at his school. Better yet, there must be thousands in the world who shared his birthday—more, he knew, but a thousand seemed like plenty—and it all came down to _probability_ that he was born with his name, and his face, in his town. He could be a different Jonathan right now, one who was _Jonathan_ but not _spooky_ or _freako_ or _Keeny_ , one whose clothes fit the way they were supposed to, who wasn’t afraid of monsters and big kids and old hands on a hickory switch, who played in the woods with the other boys and never came home with a black eye.

He wouldn’t go into the shack, he promised himself, but he might peek in through the door. He’d know for sure, then, that it was empty, and it would be one bogeyman that he could check off his list, one thing he didn’t have to be afraid of anymore. He _wouldn’t_ go in, but if he did, Bo would have to admit that he’d done it. Maybe he’d even admire him for it. Maybe, if he made a great story of it the next day, the other boys would congratulate him, and let him play freeze tag with them in the schoolyard. Nobody said much of anything to him as they walked, but Jonathan wasn’t worried about that. He was relieved not to be jostled along, and much too caught up in his thoughts to wonder at how quiet the others had gotten. They hardly said a word, even to each other, and as the shack came into view in the distance, they slowed enough to let him walk in front.

The ground was soggy near the river. By the time they got within a stone’s throw of it, they were walking in single file, sticking to the few strips of sturdy ground that wound through the muck. Up close, the shack didn’t look like it had been through a fire, though the wood was black with age and rot, and the roof was bowed in the center, sinking lopsidedly under its own weight. There were two windows, long-since boarded up, and one door at the top of three dark, sticky steps.

“Go see if it’s locked.” Bo’s voice echoed thickly in the damp air, close behind him.

Jonathan took a half-step forward, mindful of his footing in the mud, but he stopped there, reluctant to move any closer to the ugly mass of wood and moss in front of him. “Why me?”

“You’re in front,” Bo said, giving him a little shove, “Go.”

Jonathan looked at him reproachfully, but he inched a little closer to the stairs, half-expecting the door to swing open in his face, some hulking shape already looming in the doorway, come to chase them off its property. It didn’t happen, though, and he made it to the first step without incident. He didn’t have to touch the door to know it was unlocked. Up close, he could see that it was ajar, a thin slip of inky darkness marking the crack. He took another step, and then a third, hand outstretched, until his fingertips ghosted against the old wood. He held his breath when he tugged at the handle, but he felt a kind of pride when the door rattled open, revealing the undiscovered country that was the shack’s only room.

The space inside looked empty, but it harbored so many cobwebs and shadows that there might have been anything in there, watching him from the dimmest corners of the room. He could just make out a heap of blankets along one wall, an old dresser with half its drawers removed, a scattering of soggy matches covering the floor at his feet. A flash of color caught his eye, and he leaned in closer, squinting against the darkness to see a crumpled Gatorade bottle and a handful of candy wrappers in a pile by the dresser’s moldy leg.

He didn’t mean to step over the threshold. Empty or not, the shack was not a friendly place, and he’d had every intention of keeping both feet planted firmly on the stairs, but the darkness was thick, and he crept forward, inch by inch, trying to get a better look inside. He shouldn’t have been surprised when they did it. He should have known what was coming the moment Bo invited him along, but he didn’t, and curiosity got the better of him. It was over as soon as he’d stepped inside. Two hands planted themselves on his back and shoved, so hard he stumbled and landed on his knees, palms striking the floor. The river had begun to seep in through the boards and the wood felt slimy under his hands. Behind him the door slammed shut with a bang, and then it was dark all around him.

Jonathan scrambled to his feet, slipping on the wet boards, and rushed back to the door. He had to grope for it in the dark, but when he found it and tried to push his way out, it wouldn’t budge. He could hear laughter on the far side, furtive and stifled. “Let me _out._ ”

Nobody answered him. For a moment, the door seemed to wobble, as if one of them were tugging on the handle, but then he heard Bo’s voice cut in sharply, saying, “Don’t,” and the handle went still.

“Let me out, Bo, please,” Jonathan begged him. He couldn’t see a thing. The darkness stretched behind him like an ocean, and at once the little room seemed to grow ten times its size, miles of empty space just waiting to be filled with hands, and teeth, and eyes. “Please, please, let me out, please. It isn’t funny.” He pressed all his weight against the door and pushed. He didn’t think there was a lock for them to turn, but Jackie and Bo were both bigger than him, and together they could hold the door against him no matter how hard he fought. He started to panic. Nearly frantic, he kicked at the old wood and felt it shudder, rattling violently in its frame. “Bo, _please._ ”

“What’s the magic word?”

“Please,” Jonathan tried again, “I said please. What else do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know, Keeny,” Bo said, as if mulling over a very difficult decision, “I kind of like you in there. I don’t think I want to let you out.”

“You lied,” Jonathan said, stung. His voice sounded high and shrill in his own ears. “You said you wanted my help.”

“You’re the one who fell for it, dumbo,” Bo said, “Aren’t you supposed to be smart or something?”

Jonathan kicked the door again, hammered on it as hard as he could. “You _promised_ ,” he said, not caring anymore that he was on the verge of tears, that his words came out muddled and choked, “You promised we’d have a truce.”

This time he was met with silence, and that only frightened him more. They _could_ leave him there if they wanted to. They could jam the door with a log or a branch and leave, go home. Nobody would even know. He thought spending the night alone in that room and felt his skin crawl, dread pooling in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t get a good look around before they shoved him, couldn’t promise himself that there was no one hiding in the corners, behind the dresser, in that nest of dirty blankets by the wall. The image wormed its way into his head, vivid and terrible, of a face poking up from the folds of muddy cloth, teeth bared like a dog’s, watching him and waiting for the right time to strike. Jonathan whirled around and pressed his back against the door, straining his eyes against the darkness, but he was as blind as he’d ever been in his life, and he could scarcely see the wall ten feet in front of his face. “I really want to come out now,” he said weakly, squeezing his eyes shut and sinking to the floor.

Seconds passed, long and sluggish, and he gave up even trying to beg. He couldn’t hear the others laughing anymore, and the shack seemed loud without their voices to drown it out. The river hissed deep under the floorboards. Branches scraped ceaselessly at the walls. Every sound seemed like an omen in the darkness, further proof that there really _was_ something in there with him, slinking towards him slowly with its belly to the floor. Jonathan put his head in his hands and willed himself to believe that there was _no such thing as monsters, no such thing, no such thing, no such thing_.

A shout came from outside the walls and Jonathan froze, heart in his throat, but the voice was a familiar one, and it was shouting Bo’s name. There was a shuffling on the steps, and then the door creaked open, loose on its hinges without anyone there to hold it shut. Light streamed into the shack. The sun was low in the sky now, and it shone in through the opening, deep orange and fiercely bright. Numbly, he peeked his head out into the open air, squinting against the glow.

“You’re gonna get it so bad,” the newcomer was saying. It was Robbie Griggs, Jonathan realized with a start, Bo’s oldest brother. He was nearly sixteen, and he towered over Bo, who was looking more than a little sheepish, staring at his shoes with his head hung low. “Do you know what time it is? Dad wanted you home an hour ago.”

“Sorry,” Bo said, scuffing moodily at the ground.

“Yeah, you better be.” The door let out a loud squeak and Robbie jumped, seeming to catch sight of Jonathan for the first time, hunched up in the doorway of the shack. He stared at him blankly for a moment, taking in his pale face and mud-covered clothes. “What the hell were you even doing out here?”

Nobody seemed to know who the question was meant for, or how to go about answering giving it an answer. Bo just shrugged his shoulders, looking sullen and cowed. Jonathan dropped his eyes to the ground.

“You’re Keeny’s kid, right?”

Jonathan swallowed hard and nodded his head. Surely Robbie wasn’t about to tell Granny about this. Families did talk to each other in Arlen. He’d heard the other kids complain about it before, how easy it was to get in trouble if any adult happened to spot you doing something wrong, but he’d never seen any of the Griggs exchange so much as a spare word with his Granny. He hazarded a glance at Robbie’s face. He was looking at him like he thought he might be liable to burst into flames.

“You go on home,” Robbie told him, “You shouldn’t be out here in the dark.”

Jonathan heard the unease in his voice, and then he understood. Robbie _didn’t_ want anything to do with Granny. He didn’t have to worry about Robbie telling on him, because Robbie didn’t want anything to do with either of them. Running afoul of Old Mary just wasn’t worth the risk. Jonathan sat down on the front steps and looked away, wishing Robbie hadn’t noticed him at all. Bandit let out a low bark just then, drawing everyone’s attention to Jackie, who had plainly been getting ready to slip back off into the trees.

“Jackson Grey, don’t think I don’t see you,” Robbie said, seizing on the interruption, “You’re due home too.”

“Aw, come on,” Jackie protested.

“You come on,” Robbie said, beckoning him over, “It’s late. Your daddy’s gonna wonder what ditch you fell into. Get over here and I’ll walk you to the road.”

Jackie huffed a sigh, but he came to join Robbie and Bo by the treeline, kicking up leaves as he went. Robbie glanced back at Jonathan once more before they left. “You coming?”

Jonathan shook his head and stayed where he was on the steps, hugging his knees and saying nothing. Robbie shrugged and gave up. Bo muttered something to the others as they were leaving, jerking his thumb back to point at him, but they were too far off for Jonathan to hear what he’d said.

He sat and listened to the sounds of them walking away, Bandit yapping and running along behind, until their footsteps had faded into silence and all he could hear were the dog’s loud barks, ringing out through the trees. When even they were gone, he got up, rubbing his eyes with his muddy sleeves, and started back towards home.

He took one last look at the shack before he left it— _empty, empty, empty_ —and kicked a few rocks down the bank as if to say good riddance. He should have known it was empty to begin with, just like he should have known that Bo was setting him up for a trap. He felt stupid, but more than that he felt muddy, and tired, and cold. Granny liked to tell him that nobody ever learned a lesson that didn’t hurt a little on the way down. He should have known better, and now he did. He wouldn’t fall for that trick ever again.

It was dark by the time he reached the top of the bank, and he could see a light in the distance, shining feebly from the space across the road, looking for all the world like one of the millions of stars overhead, angled just a little closer to the ground. Granny had left the porch light on for him.

The school library had a book about astronomy and the constellations. It was one of his favorites, and Mrs. Leigh sometimes left it out for him if she knew he’d be coming in there during lunch. The north star, he’d read, somewhere in those pages, was not the brightest star in the night sky. It was, in fact, one of the dimmer stars in the traditional constellations. It was used for navigation not because it was bright, but because it never moved. Located at the very tip of the northern hemisphere, its position never changed, no matter the continent, or the season, or the time of night. Granny was going to be furious with him, he knew, and he was dreading the welts and bruises he’d surely have come morning, but he also knew she would not have turned the porch light on if she weren’t worried about him, just a very little bit.

He never found the trail he’d been on when he ran into Bo and Jackie. He had no sense for the woods in the dark, and he knew he’d lose himself quickly if he tried to make his way back there, disoriented by the strange shadows and low-hanging branches. He just cut a straight course out to the road, through all the reeds and the thick undergrowth, navigating by the porch light like it was Polaris at the top of the sky.


End file.
